


Prompt: Cyclical

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [27]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Codependency, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5637340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Wanda thinks their parents in this life were killed for that cowardice, other times she thinks that had they not been cowards, had they fought, Sokovia would not be in the state it was. They can’t know though, not in truth, and she and Pietro stay as close by as ever. </p><p>They still don’t know why they always return to Sokovia, or why they always die together. They do not resent it - Sokovia is as familiar to themselves as each other, and they would always sooner die together than apart - but it is odd and curious, and Wanda sometimes wonders if there was a life before the first they know that tied them to this place, in the woods and the mountains and the snow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Cyclical

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on my tumblr, which you can see [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/136615632390/prompt-reincarnation-the-twins-remember-their).

**i.**  
The first time they are born the tribes are just learning of farming. They have culled the herds that passed through for long years already, and been keeping small animals - chickens rabbits - carefully penned where they can, but the idea of growing seeds is new. Not everyone trusts the southern tribes moving northwards, carrying and trading their knowledge, but everyone agrees that they are healthy and fit and with much food to trade.

Pietro - Pieter in this life - hunts more often than not in this life, quick and quiet through the woods, keeping the herds culled, keeping enemies away from home. Wanda - Anda in this life - works with their Oath-Keeper, managing the ways of the gods with the darting scarlet she can make manifest.

They die when they are twenty-two years old, when another tribe attacks for their food, their farms. They die holding hands, and fall into the pit together.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
The second time they are born the world is changed. The _isarna_  that their people had only known for it’s sparks could now be made metal, what they called _isern_  and what would in later lives be known as iron. Society is more strongly held together too, messages between the tribes in the region, less war, though they hear of battles on the island far-far to the West were the sun sets.

Pietro - Pstein in this life - runs messages between the settlements or errands for his sister. Wanda - Andara in this life - still works with their magic-folk, healing and helping and managing the ways of the gods. Wanda does not have the scarlet this time, but she knows when people worry and when they fear and how to help them manage it. Pietro, as ever, has his speed.

They die of old age, within hours of each other, and sometimes wish they could have lived that life longer.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
Their third and fourth and fifth lives make sense, and watching the progression of the world around them is interesting. They always have a way with certain things, skills picked up from past lives allowing them the knowledge the need to adapt to the changing world. Their names change - sometimes far from the originals - but they tended to retain aspects, like those around them had some inkling this was not the first time they had lived. In their fifth life Wanda can read minds, and tells Pietro that it is not so much an inkling as a sense. 

“Some names feel _right_  for people after all. That is what they do with us.”

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
They have lived through many lives by the time they live the Second World War. They missed the first, though some quirk, but not this second, and flee Sokovia as soon as it is invaded, run as far as they can and hide. They had heard of what was happening to people with skills, and Wanda’s scarlet doesn’t always tuck back into her veins as it is supposed to, but Pietro’s speed can take them miles in moments.

They run and they hide, and die beneath a crumbling building and they have never been more ashamed of their fear.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
Sometimes Wanda thinks their parents in this life were killed for that cowardice, other times she thinks that had they not been cowards, had they fought, Sokovia would not be in the state it was. They can’t know though, not in truth, and she and Pietro stay as close by as ever. 

They still don’t know why they always return to Sokovia, or why they always die together. They do not resent it - Sokovia is as familiar to themselves as each other, and they would always sooner die together than apart - but it is odd and curious, and Wanda sometimes wonders if there was a life before the first they know that tied them to this place, in the woods and the mountains and the snow.

They have always been close, but in this world apartness seems almost more valued. They try not to hug as much, not to go to each other first for comfort, but other people do not understand why a dart whistling by their ears can be just as triggering to them as a bullet is to any other. They hear words spat at them, ideas possibly more abhorrent to them who have had life after life after life condemning it to them.

They do not have powers this time, and it worries them. 

Pietro can still pick pockets as well as any one, Wanda still retains her way with people, but without their powers, without Pietro’s speed, or whichever of Wanda’s talents she gains this life, they are set back, starting on the wrong foot with everything they try.

That is why, when the offer is made, they take it. More than vengeance on Stark for killing innocents, more than helping their country, they wanted back the tools to do it with.

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
Of them it is Pietro who is unsurprised when Wanda gets all of her powers rather than just one. Her mind stretches out, thin as a veil of silk, and touches his, under whatever surveillance the twins are being kept under. Wanda knows these gifts, knows them far more than the doctors and scientists think, and it is easy to show her brother all she has regained.

 _I’m glad_ , he sends, with a wave of it, _You always have been the stronger of us. I think my speed has come back oddly._  He shows her an image of him colliding with a wall, and Wanda weaves her scarlet through his mind to find the misplaced nerve.

 _There_ , she says, eventually. _Try now_.

Pietro relaxes into a run as he ever did, and runs a circuit of his room so fast he is running on the walls.

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
The doctors insist on training them, and it would annoy Pietro apart from the fact that, in her own time, Wanda is learning more, learning how to use her gifts in tandem with each other, telepathy to tease emotion, to locate where to send her scarlet, and for all her tiredness she is _shining_  when next he sees her.

“Wanda,” he breathes, and wraps her hands with his. 

“Pietro,” she replies, smiling, calm, and certain. “There is to be a battle.”

Pietro settles at her side, rocking back on his heels and ready to run.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
They do not get to fight Stark then, and Pietro is almost furious when Wanda insists they let him take the sceptre. _Look,_  she sends with the nightmare of Stark’s mind. _He will destroy himself more easily than we could._  

Pietro humphs as he runs them to the city. _I would rather we could tear him apart ourselves._  

Wanda’s hand strokes his arm gently as he sets her down. _This way_ , she sends, _He will destroy himself, and no one will find trace of sabotage. He will be made a fool_. The image she accompanies it with - Stark in clown make up - makes Pietro crack up laughing, and he is quiet relaxed when they curl together for warmth to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
Ultron they do not know what to make of. They pick words carefully around him, use the English they have learned through their many lives, and save Sokovian - rapid and pebbled with whatever other languages they can think of - for each other, to keep Ultron from knowing them truly. They let him think it was vengeance which drove them to life, when they knew they would have lived regardless.

They do not like him. He unnerves Wanda, who, even without her telepathy, can tell his madness from his movements, his willingness to violence, his belief that things should ever go his way. They follow his plan because, at this point, they gain nothing from betrayal, but Pietro is waiting, ever on the balls of his feet, to speed them away to safety.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
He speeds them away to safety in Seoul, before Wanda insists they return. 

“The body,” she says. “It has an old soul, like we do. Ultron was _overwriting it_.”

Pietro frowns. “Should we wake it?”

“Not with Ultron in his head too. It would drive him mad.”

Then they see the Avengers fighting, and Pietro runs them to the battle.

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
_No,_  Wanda thinks, when Captain America says they have sent the body to Stark. _No, no, no, he will overwrite it too!_ Pietro’s hand is soothing in hers, even as he catches his breath, and Wanda makes what arguments she can in what English she has so they might go to the tower with him.

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
Pietro sees the cables and pulls them all. Overwritten and manipulated, they do not know what will happen to the old soul, but they can ensure it does not live this time around, that it dies and returns to it’s cycle. He can feel the panic of Wanda’s mind, fear for him, fallen through the floor, fear of Banner, trying to hold her back, fear for the body in the Cradle, and the old soul within that too.

He sends _calm_  and _love_  and runs to her side when the creature emerges.

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
_Old soul_ , Wanda sends, and her mind is singing. _Old soul, old soul, old soul! He has no past now, but he was strong enough to overcome Ultron and Stark both_.

Pietro is wary and stays close to her, but cannot deny the creature seems strong and certain in much the same way as Wanda.

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
The battle is terrible, and while they speak their English to the Avengers and briefly to each other they speak with their minds more and more. _Watch out,_  sends Wanda, and Pietro ducks. _Behind you,_  sends Pietro, and Wanda turns to see his silver blur. To the minds of the people Wanda is sending out _calm_  and _comfort_  and vast surges of protectiveness to rival even what Pietro feels for her.

 

* * *

 

 **xv.**  
_I hate battles_ , she sends to Pietro at the church. _I **hate**  them. Come back safe to me_.

In the bridge between their mind’s Pietro’s thoughtform hugs hers. _I always do_ , he promises. _And if I do not, you know we will see each other soon._

Wanda anchors herself on that, but she cannot stop her scream as she feels Pietro torn from her.

 

* * *

 

 **xvi.**  
_I will die_ , she knows. _I cannot live long without him, nor he without me_. She chooses vengeance, at last and goes to tear the heart from Ultron.

 

* * *

 

 **xvii.**  
_No,_  she thinks, when Vision comes to take her from the tram. _No, let me stay here, let me die._

“Your brother is on the lifeboat,” Vision says. “They think if they get him to the prototype cradle in the Helicarrier’s medical bay they may be able to bring him back yet.”

Wanda’s hands, reinforced with scarlet, dig in even to Vision’s vibranium muscles.

 

* * *

 

 **xviii.**  
_Pietro_ , she thinks, and watches the cradle. _Please, oh, please. I will live as long as I can, but if you can come back, oh my brother._  Her languages slip together, until she is promises on _isarna_  and not iron, on _stein_  and not stone, on _pozhar_ and not fire.

 _Please,_  she thinks. _I will give all my remaining lives for it_.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
